"A Patriotic Life Changing Experience"

Well, so much for that posting every day thing.... I'm sure all of you have been worried sick about where I've been and what's been happening to me. I hate to disappoint but I have not been eaten by bears; I've just been lazy and without an internet connection. I still have childish hopes of making a post for each of the missed days but I'm probably too tired at the moment to make it that far this evening.

So, the last time I posted, the wife and I were in Minneapolis. We are now in Montana, outside of Glacier National Park. In between here and there, we have been in Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming. We were on our way to the Black Hills of South Dakota when I practically demanded that we drive through Iowa (a state to which I had never been and was only 10 miles away from the interstate). This added maybe 25 minutes to our trip but probably indebted me to Kate for life. Our destination in South Dakota was the Black Hills National Park and Mount Rushmore National Monument. The interstate through South Dakota is lined with signs for lame tourist attractions like 1880 Town and Reptile Gardens. This is one of the only places in the country aside from Pedro's South of the Border that I have seen advertisements for destinations over 150 miles away from one's current location. We were roped into going to two of these tourist traps: Wall Drug in Wall, SD and The Mitchell Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. The Corn Palace was certainly a sight to behold. It's basically a glorified high school basketball gym decorate with corn husks all over. It also doubles as an entertainment venue (they were still advertising for concerts by Joan Jett and David Cook who had played there in the last few weeks). Wall Drug......I don't even know what to say. An amazing conglomeration of stupid crap for sale. It nearly put Gatlinburg to shame.

We arrived in the Black Hills safely despite travelling on a treacherous and windy yet super beautiful mountain road. We stopped at an overlook and when I got out of the car and smelled the woods, I was instantly in a better mood. From this overlook, we were able to spot the ridiculous carving that had prompted us to travel so many miles: Mount Rushmore. On one of the many ridiculous billboards that we passed on our 9 hour drive to our destinations, this was billed as a "patriotic life changing experience." My initial viewing and my closer, more official look the next morning confirmed that it looks just like it looks in pictures.........but smaller. After the drive, we arrived at our desired campground but the office was closed and so we were not able to pay for our site. We then got up and out of the campground before the office was open and were still unable to pay for our stay (I feel guilty about this and plan on making contact with the campground to see if we can send them a check or something in the hopes that they will be so touched by my honesty that they will tell me not to worry about it since I'm such a classy guy).

The Black Hills were utterly gorgeous and a welcome change from the boring landscape of South Dakota/western Minnesota but we could not linger. We had bigger fish to fry. After a brief visit to Mount Rushmore in which my life was decidedly NOT changed; patriotically or not, we began our drive to our country's first national park: Yellowstone. This drive was equally long but we managed to escape the temptation of stopping for "Mystery Spots" and Dances With Wolves Movie sets and made good time. Much of Wyoming's countryside is interesting but ultimately kind of dull after about 30 minutes of looking at it but there are certainly regions of beauty. Very close to Yellowstone, we passed through Shoshone National Forest and we went through a mountain pass that was pretty unbelievable. The driving so far on the trip has been pretty tolerable due to interesting scenery and as we've passed through the more boring landscapes, we've had Harry Potter to console us (sadly, we've now finished with Potter which has left us with a feeling of emptiness inside and nothing to console us but a rather inadequate John Grisham audiobook - The Partner).

So, we arrived safely at Yellowstone. YAY! We were happy to be there but were quickly disappointed when we saw that the campground that we wanted to stay at was full. No big deal. There's another campground we can stay at that has showers and everything and it has vacancy. We'll just go there. It may be 51 miles away on slow mountainous roads but at least we'll have beautiful scenery to enjoy. No big deal. After a drive of close to an hour and a half (this is on top of the 8 that we have just driven), we arrive at the campground only to find that it has filled up in the interim since we had arrived at the park entrance. I should take a step back, however, to tell the best part of our drive from the entrance to the campground. Shortly after we arrive at the park, we drive up and see a crowd of cars parked on the side of the road and people standing around. This is not uncommon in Yellowstone when people think they can see an animal. However, in this particular instance, we are not able to see any animal. As we approach, it looks as though people have stopped to stare at a mudpit on the side of the road. Not wanting to miss anything and also feeling that it would be bad to hit a pedestrian with my car, I slow down to see what's up. I come to almost a complete stop and it stills seems as though there is nothing of interest in the vicinity. But that is when a FUCKING GRIZZLY BEAR walks out onto the road and is literally about 6 feet away from our car. I, being the sissy that I am, did not get a picture of this, unfortunately, but I swear that that bear was close enough to rip our faces off. I had a moment where I thought about all those stupid people that I've laughed at on America's Funniest Home Videos or Real TV and the stories that I've read of people provoking wild animals only to be, surprise!, viciously attacked and I concluded that I did NOT want to be one of them so after confirming that there was, in fact, a FUCKING GRIZZLY BEAR within six feet of the car, I quickly drove off. There was a guy within about 5 feet of the bear who was just sort of standing there essentially asking to have his face torn off. I can only imagine that is precisely what happened.

That was more in depth than I planned on posting this evening so I am going to go to bed with a feeling of accomplishment while still maintaing the determination to catch up with the chronicling of our epic road trip.